Foals - Balloons

From the Space Needle to Starbuck's to Sub Pop Records, one thing I can say about Seattle is that they love the letter S. Seriously!

Seriously, S-P turns the big 2-0 this year, and they're still an indie label. To celebrate, a series featuring artists on Sub Pop, starting with Foals...



Links in the vid: Sub Pop homepage, a supercool vintage clothing site, and click-through-to-buy albums and single for Balloons.

The Octopus Project

Wikipedia describes them as "indietronic," which I guess is a blend of "independent" and "electronic." I suppose that's fair, although I thought independent was a status and not a genre. What do I know? I'll tell you: I love the sound of this tune. It's a forward-thinking poppy rocky electronicky rollicking good time. I guess that's what indietronic means.

The Ting Tings

The Ting Tings formed about two years ago, and have just released their first full album. Singles that were released ahead of time shot to #1 in the UK. This single shot to #1 in my head. It's pretty damn catchy.



Did you know? Clicking on the popups in the video can lead you away to more information about them. Sweet!

Wolf Parade

Wolf Parade is an indie rock band from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, now based in Montreal, Quebec. They formed on the fly when Spencer Krug was offered a gig supporting Arcade Fire’s Us Kids Know tour. With only a 3-week deadline to form a band and record enough songs to support a tour, Krug contacted a fellow Canadian guitarist Dan Boeckner (formerly of British Columbia band Atlas Strategic) and began writing songs in Krug's apartment. Initially using a drum machine for their rhythm section played through computer speakers, Krug later invited Arlen Thompson to the lineup as the drummer; however, the newly formed trio rehearsed as a full band only the day before their first show. During the tour, Wolf Parade recorded and released their self-titled debut EP (referred to as the 4 Song EP) in 2003.

Their latest endeavour was finally titled At Mount Zoomer, after other titles were rejected for various reasons. It will be released in Canada next Tuesday. This track is from their first Sub Pop Records release, Apologies to the Queen Mary. I like.

The Get Out Clause

This video (and the story behind it) is something else. Basically this band had no money to produce a video for their single, so they used some of the more than 13 million closed-circuit cameras in the UK to film, and then requested the footage under the freedom of information act. I had a hard time finding the single itself for sale (I did eventually find it and it's in the lower left-hand corner), but they are heavily influenced by Coldplay, so there's some of that linked in the video too.

Take a look. It's pretty neat...

The Pistolas

I got another track off of the Grand Theft Auto 4 soundtrack. It's a great little brit-pop tune by a band which, after much digging, I was able to find little on. It's no surprise there's no Wikipedia article, because their MySpace page contains the following:

After four years of making music together we The Pistolas have decided that our journey as a band has come to an end. It has been a blast without a doubt. We’d like to sincerely thank everyone that has to come to our shows, buy and listen to our music. We have appreciated all your support. Thank you. We will be embarking on new projects very soon.

So enjoy this; there's not too much else... and keep your eyes open for the awesome special effects!



Did you know? Clicking on the popups in the video will take you to the product website. Cool!

The Kooks

Love trolling MySpace music, and love the british pop, apparently. This tune, off The Kooks' second album, is a rollicking good time. 'Konk' went straight to Number 1 in the UK Album chart, and it's no surprise to me. Shine on, my friends...



Did you know? Not only can you click on the popups in the video, but you can also click on them in the sidebar at any time for more information, and a redirect to the site where they are found.

For Patrick

My friend Patrick reminds me a lot of my friend Danny, which is good because sometimes I feel like I'll never get to see my friend Danny again. Damned Slovakia. Anyway, we were boozing earlier today and he reminded me about how much Rance Mok likes the math. And if that doesn't make any sense to you, check out the following.



Now Patrick's going to send me a fb message to let me know it wasn't Carlsberg.

Final Fantasy

Yeah. It's about the worst name for a band I can imagine. Because when you go to look for them on say, the internet, all you find is stuff that's not them. Anyway, I like the hook in this tune...

Interpol

Mates of State

You can hear about ten seconds of one of their tunes in an AT&T Wireless ad, and it took me a while to find out who it was. Without further ado, lose yourself in the fantabulous pop stylings of this duo from sunny California...

::HILOTRONS::

Awesome.